Picked up a typewriter at a tag sale recently for parts to use in my art, and I've been enjoying the dis-assembly process. Creation must begin with destruction, after all. For an assemblage artist, all these little parts are an embarrassment of riches. And since I've been wanting to try my hand at kinetic art, I can really appreciate the engineering that went into a machine like this. Typewriters may seem quaint now, but in taking one apart I was constantly amazed by the complexity and ingenuity of the mechanisms. In a fairly small space there are literally hundreds of parts -- levers, springs, gears, rollers, screws, etc., all just barely staying out of each other's way. I don't want to romanticize old technology -- we could certainly do without the legacy of the qwerty keyboard, which was designed to slow down typists so they didn't jam these mechanical contraptions. But they are quite impressive machines. Not so impressive, though, that I wouldn't destroy one for the sake of art ;-)